When a brave officer was about to be led away to a debtor's
prison, Manlius interceded for him and released him with his own
money; at the same time he offered his lands to sale, declaring
loudly that, as long as he possessed a foot's breadth of land, such
iniquities should not occur. This was more than enough to unite the
whole government party, patricians as well as plebeians, against the
dangerous innovator.

The trial for high treason, the charge of having
meditated a renewal of the monarchy, wrought on the blind multitude
with the insidious charm which belongs to stereotyped party-phrases.
They themselves condemned him to death, and his renown availed him
nothing save that it was deemed expedient to assemble the people for
the bloody assize at a spot whence the voters could not see the rock
of the citadel--the dumb monitor which might remind them how their
fatherland had been saved from the extremity of danger by the hands of
the very man whom they were now consigning to the executioner (370).

While the attempts at reformation were thus arrested in the bud,
the social disorders became still more crying; for on the one
hand the domain-possessions were ever extending in consequence of
successful wars, and on the other hand debt and impoverishment were
ever spreading more widely among the farmers, particularly from the
effects of the severe war with Veii (348-358) and of the burning of
the capital in the Gallic invasion (364).